


what the stars give us

by WetSammyWinchester



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: 1970s, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 08:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/pseuds/WetSammyWinchester
Summary: "They may know space, James, but you know what it means to truly fly."
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 13
Kudos: 42
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	what the stars give us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Terror Fan Bingo prompt of 70s AU. Couldn't resist the parallels of putting these two in the early years of the space program. Thanks to zipegs for the beta on my first Terror fic!

The inky black is a terrifying comfort. Outside the window, the stars shine like diamond chips, but their light isn't enough to brighten the dark that surrounds them. The stars are familiar, the same ones they’ve been looking at for four days, and James recognizes the constellations he studied as a boy and as a navigator—Ursa Minor to head north, the Southern Cross to head south. 

But no matter how far or fast they move through space, the stars don’t get any closer; James could almost think they were standing still.

A tug on the sleeve of his suit pulls his attention away from Polaris’s bright light.

“Here,” Francis says, as he holds out a small plastic bag filled with amber liquid. Whiskey. The crew smuggled three sealed pouches on board with their regular food and drink rations so the Artemis V crew could celebrate their first moonwalk. 

But there would be no celebration. The moon is behind them and the stars stretch endlessly ahead of them.

“Thank you, Francis.” James pulls his suited arm out from under the silver space blanket. He hates the damn things which are so slippery and bright. When Franklin pulled them two days ago, an added safety measure against the growing cold, he joked that the three men would be as toasty as foil-wrapped potatoes on a campfire. 

They drank the first pouch of whiskey that night.

James tugs off the glove of his suit and takes careful hold of the drink. The straw is awkward to sip through and it’s not the best quality liquor, but it’s warm as it slips down his throat and pools in his empty stomach. With the second sip, the warmth blooms across his chest in a pleasant way that doesn’t reach his icy feet.

When he tries to hand the pouch back to Francis, the other man shakes his head and turns to look out the lee-side porthole. 

Floating in that immense field of black is the blue dot of Earth. Pristine and colorful, it looks more like a children’s book illustration than the home James remembers. Francis’s eyes are soft and his lips turn down as he studies the view. James knows the feeling, of indulging in despair, but he can’t stand to watch his captain—_his brother_—sink into melancholy again.

“Time for a log entry,” James says briskly. He twists the pouch closed, strapping it down to the dash. “Anything to record, Commander?”

Francis struggles to sit up in his too-large suit and squints down at the dark console. The lights are dead with only the ventilation system and radio running on the last remaining bit of battery. Last message was three hours ago; a few broken words of support and last-ditch ideas sent by their colleagues in Houston. But they are miles beyond that now.

“Why don’t we send them an update?” Francis says as he pulls off one of his gloves, flipping on the radio transmitter with a stiff finger. 

“We are nine hours outside the moon’s orbit. Our heading is the same as before,” James reports. He shifts the blanket wrapped around him to pull down the navigator’s log from overhead as Francis begins transmission. 

“This is Crozier and Fitzjames on Artemis V,” Francis begins. “It is 0300 hours. We continue to drift outward on the same heading. The temperature in the lunar lander has dropped another five degrees and oxygen levels are at—” Francis glances at James before he finishes. “—three percent. Onward we go, like an arrow shot roughly towards points unknown.”

As Francis hits the send button, James makes himself useful, taking note of the flight stats as they have at the top of every hour. The entries, line after line of precise handwriting, have now dissolved into scribbles and misspellings. James tries to complete the current entry but sharp cold now bites at his ungloved hand and his fingers begin to shake uncontrollably. The tremors don’t feel like a part of him, just another thing to observe, another fact to take note of, and the pencil in his hand skates across the paper, leaving a smear of graphite in lieu of words. It floats out of his grasp and his pale fingers curl as they chase after it unsuccessfully. He grunts in frustration and drops his arm.

“That’s alright,” Francis says. “Leave it. Put your glove back on.”

“But we should—” The pencil drifts and bumps uselessly into the console before it floats towards Franklin’s chair. James jerks his eyes away from where the Commander's silent figure is wrapped in silver. His only distraction since the accident has been filing reports, checking their bearing, following protocol. Now, he has nothing. The walls of the lunar lander feel like they are closing in on him. Panic washes over him and he squeezes his eyes shut against it.

“Flight Engineer Fitzjames,” Francis says with enough authority that James opens his eyes again, but all he sees is the waiting darkness outside his window. “Look at me.”

Francis touches his arm, and James loses himself for a moment, wondering what Francis’s fingers would feel like brushing against his bare skin. An odd thought when six days ago they practically came to blows over launch protocols in the hanger bay. 

Now, the two of them are brothers in disaster and James wonders if somehow, in another life, they could have been something more.

“Do you remember that story you told?” Francis says. “At the mission director’s party before we left? The one about blacking out and wrecking the X-1 in the salt flats of Nevada. You had all those NASA engineers and flight directors mesmerized. They may know space, James, but you know what it means to truly fly. Tell me that story again.”

Three days before launch, NASA’s chief mission director hosted a barbeque at his sprawling home in the Houston suburbs. The director’s wife took his arm as James walked in the door, pressing it into her breast as she gave a tour of the house. She was a part-time interior designer with an exuberance for soft furniture stacked with pillows in greens and golds and blues, with kidney-shaped teak tables and hanging glass lamps with looping gold chains. James kept bumping his head on the lamps and the wife would giggle and take another sip from her half-drunk wine. To a man who spent years in Air Force housing, the extravagance and color were thrilling to the eye. She blushed when he graciously complimented her choice of artwork above the fireplace before extricating himself. 

As he moved through the milling crowd of co-workers and space groupies, he greeted each one by name with a smile and a wave. 

“Good luck for you that Blanky took ill,” the mission director said when he caught up to James. “His one chance to walk on the moon and he blew it.” 

Two days before lift-off Thomas came down with a nasty case of German Measles and was ruled ineligible to fly. He was Crozier’s friend. As James joined the crew debriefing that day, the conversation between the two men was frosty but polite.

While he was enjoying the attention, he grabbed a glass of red wine from a passing server and stepped outside for air. Some of the other astronauts were gathered next to the pool and Franklin waved him over.

“Fitzjames, my boy,” Franklin hailed him as he walked over. “Come join us over here. We were just toasting the mission.” 

The crowd gathered around Franklin looked over at James, beers in one hand, cigarettes in the other with buzzed smiles on their faces. On the edge of the crowd, Francis nodded in greeting as Franklin dragged James to his side and clapped his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. 

Franklin raised his glass and the rest of the men followed suit. “To the moon and glory,” Franklin said. They all repeated the toast and clinked with enthusiasm.

“James, I was telling all of them about your days flying experimental planes out in the desert, how you almost died that day in the Widowmaker. Riding that jet over 12,000 feet into the sky? If you’re going to go out, that’s the way to go. A blaze of glory.”

Praise from Franklin was the fuel he ran on in those pre-launch days. The older man was a legend at NASA, the most tenured astronaut with the least experience where it counted - in space. This mission would be the Commander’s last grab at his own piece of glory. 

“Well,” James said with a smile as he settled in at Franklin’s side, pulling his aviator sunglasses down to shade against the glare of the pool. “I’m not sure about a blaze of glory, but I am glad to be alive.”

As the men laughed, he looked over at Francis again, noting how his eyes crinkled up in the corner when he smiled. In that moment, they were not friends. But now he wonders—

“James,” he hears. Another tug on his sleeve interrupts the story he’s telling. He tries to start again but no words come out. “James, you must wake up. Wake up now.”

The ring of men laughing around him is gone, along with the warmth of the Texas sun and the sparkle of the pool. His eyes flutter open again to the same black view.

“You fell asleep,” Francis says, his calm voice a contrast to the deep concern in his pinched face.

“Did I?” James says. His head is a little fuzzy, and it won’t get any better as the last of their stale oxygen is used up. “I had a dream. You were there.”

“Ah, the party,” Francis says with a smile as he reaches for the whiskey pouch again. “You were quite the star that night.” 

“Forgive me, Francis,” he says softly. 

“The accident wasn’t your fault,” Francis says. “You had no way of knowing.”

“Not that.” His tongue is thick from the whiskey and the low levels of oxygen. “For the way I treated you back in Houston.” Drowsiness takes hold of him again and there is a tug to return to the dream of those laughing men and the sparkling blue pool that he can’t ignore.

“You are my friend now, James, and always will be,” Francis says. He salutes James with the drink. “To the moon and glory.”

“To the moon and _beyond_,” James says. “How will they remember us, Francis?”

“As good men who faced an impossible situation.” Francis settles back into his seat and drinks from the whiskey. “Rest, James. I’ll take this watch.”


End file.
